Fucking wind and rain...

So I've basically been up since 1:20pm on Sat. running fire calls or something else weather related. I was told we did 73 or 74 calls yesterday and there were like 20 or so today. These consisted of one working building fire, 2 gas main breaks and many many trees down/wires down/electrical fires. Then when I went home Sat night my block was not fully powered so we kept having issues with the heating system and other things around the house... going home to sleep yielded a whole one hour if I was lucky.

Today we had a fun call too! House had all the above ground electrical running in the back yard and the transformer fell, remained energized and charged the chain link fence on the sides and rear of the house. Moron LIPA supervisor was like "power is shut down" as the fence was arcing into the ground and lighting nearby things on fire... great. After they pulled their heads out of their asses they shut it down, about 30 minutes later...

All this and I never even mentioned that Sat night was supposed to be the annual Dept Dinner, the Volly Prom, Dog and Pony Show... and all the inactive members were there to pat themselves on the back while the real people were running calls like mofo's. Don't get me wrong, if you're an old member who's past the point of being an active "call runner" by all means go to the dinner. However when there's a probie there drinking and having a ball fuck him (just also so happens to be the probie who was in my recent extrication class who would rather not gear all the way up and drink a water while a commissioner busts his ass with hand tools, then wouldn't follow my orders... douche.). I signed up to be a firefighter, the volley prom is a sorry to my significant other  for always running out on calls or drills etc. Ugh...

So yeah, no sleep... I'm beyond the point of tired now. Also missed filing for my unemployment insurance and working on the sales book because I was out running around. Perhaps I can put in a little more time on the book and call and get help back-filing the unemployment...

My surgery is also around the corner... starting to get ready for it. Have to go out tomorrow and get stuff for my special diet for the pre-surgical and post-surgical periods. Tomorrow (Mon) was going to be my last day of real food before the 10 day liquid diet but Im going to do 5-Guys with Jen as my last meal on Tues night, may as well send myself off right!

Ok, let me get back to trying this sleep shit... I have a lot to do tomorrow (today... shit...) and need to rest up since I havent slept for crap.

Progress... in the right direction?

Level 8 Website : bare-bones placeholder splash page
Client's sales book - 33% done with the major outline/page designs
New client search - not started
Training videos - approx. 10% done (there are a lot of vids. thanks to Chris)

Next client deadline - 13 days
Client expectations - High (they now know I've lost my job and have "all this free time"...)
My outlook - favorable, I think I can get a great chunk of work completed at my current skill level
My goal - Complete framework of book and at least 60% of content by 3/23

Also I have my surgery coming up. I just received all of my liquid meal replacement drinks in the mail, tomorrow I am going to try one to see how it tastes. Which reminds me, this weekend's Department dinner is going to be my last drinking episode until probably like 2 months after my surgery (May 26th-ish) so I'll be operational by Memorial Day!

I need focu... ooooh! Shiny thing!

Watched a bunch of InDesign training material today, worked a bit over the weekend on the business cards for Level 8 and had a bunch of other things going on that kept me from the computer. However I didn't get much of the work I need to do for Tues evening's meeting done.

Here's the plan. I've been waking up and going to bed whenever, and I'm finding out this sucks. My routine is non-existent and I need some sense of regularity in my life. It sucked getting up at 4:40am each weekday for work with the old job and I guess I've been overcompensating for that. Time to get on a schedule again, maybe wake up at 7 or 8? That sounds reasonable right?

Level 8 Update

Tonight I watched a tutorial on one thing for flash on Adobe's website and ended up teaching myself something half-assed on my own.

Currently my first ever flash project is the temporary home page of www.lvl8.com

I'd ask for feedback but currently nobody seems to be reading this. Ah, ramblings of a broken mind...

Level 8

So I decided (finally) on a name for my "company" that I'm gonna tinker with, "Level 8". Turns out with a lot of google help and searching online there are a lot of other web design/desktop publishing/media companies that have a similar name. That's great to know I'm not the only crazy guy out there thinking of that name, horrible because I'm now associated with them all.

Bought the domain www.lvl8.com and posted just a simple logo picture that I envisioned and my friend Chris was able to polish up for me. I'm sure there will be an infinite amount of revisions made to it over the course of it's existence but I like it for now.

Being out of work right now I should really be more productive however lately the wind seems to be taken out of my sails and I'm not one who enjoys rowing. Tomorrow I plan on getting back into it strong, make a sizable dent into my "clients" sales book and do some work on the new website. Probably going to print up a small batch of business cards so I can eventually seek out new clients.

Thank you also to Chirs and Alvin who are working on getting me plenty of training videos so I can "level up" on my Adobe Suite skills.

So I was thinking...

What if life was like a giant fractal image? You can zoom in and out infinitely and each planet is a cell within a body... or zoom down and each living being is a cell within a planet, and we all have cells within us, which have smaller pieces within them and cells adapt and change like animals adapt and change and planets adapt and change and the universe adapts and changes... Gah, all the cause of this video

but the funny part is I've thought this before, Im sure others have too... but once it's remembered it kinda bugs me for a while. Then I kinda wonder if we're like a cancerous cell. Ever mutating building, spreading faster... maybe something like asteroids are the universes immune system trying to put us in place... ah crap.

All this thinking because I've just lost my job and now have an idle mind...

Monday I plan on getting on top of getting back to order.

as the title says

Decided I'm actually going to use this thing... see if I can get (read:keep) the ball rolling. Figure with my job I'm always driving around Nassau/Suffolk/Queens and could find some funny shit to post... witty updates etc. With the FD I can post fun stuff like the extrication class I'm currently getting state certified in (for those who don't know that the Hurst Tool or the "Jaws of Life"). Plus this would be a great outlet to get feedback on some side work I'm doing with desktop publishing...

Let's face it. I work 11+ hour days, I'm a not only a Vol. firefighter but also am responsible for the training aspect of the other members, I have a side job where I'm the boss and I also have a great GF that I wish I could spend more time with. So really, how much time will I have to dedicate to this... we shall see...

Also probably a good place to "let off some steam"... although I've never been upset or unhappy with life I have sometimes felt like it's missing something... perhaps that's why I do so much more stuff than I could handle in a healthy way... but c'mon folks, who needs sleep?

I'll also post on here about the lap band surgery. Progress, thoughts, anxieties and all the other good stuff. Anxious as hell right now, just got the phone call today that "all is in order" and I'm just waiting for a call from the surgeon to set up a date, it's looking like beginning of March. Feel like I'm letting my FD brothers/sisters down though because I'm the guy who's been bringing the new guys into their first fire for many years now... and I've also got the younger members under my wing... and this year at the academy I probably won't be able to. I really really enjoy training these guys/gals how to do this shit... maybe I should become an FSA instructor...

Well, almost 2300hrs... that means if I go to sleep now I can get about 5.5hrs of sleep... that's a good amount for me!

new

Im online... at work so I can't type much but that we are up and running.